It was easy to keep school marks high and sport a top priority at boarding school, but volunteering was a bit of an ask. She emailed the UCT Admissions Office to find out what she had to do, and they suggested she volunteer in the holidays.

When she told her mother, Anathi, she’d offered to organise for Karabo to spend time with Dr Anand — the doctor who had operated on her broken arm last year. Dr Anand was “fond” of Anathi, which meant he thought she was hot. Karabo knew her mom liked him too but the whole long-distance relationship thing was never going to work. Mom would only see him if she was in the area or if he flew up to Johannesburg.

Even so, Karabo thought it was quite sweet that Dr Anand really liked her mom. At the same time, it might make it a bit weird to job-shadow him. Thankfully, she had enough sense to know that she’d probably get stuck in the pharmacy counting pills for his patients. She doubted he would allow her to watch his surgeries.

When Karabo told Isla about the requirement to do community service and volunteering at a health facility, Isla seemed unperturbed.

‘No sweat, Karabs, you can ask your sangoma teacher to log your hours or something? That’s community and health volunteering all in one, right?’ she stated, as though it was obvious. Karabo blinked in amazement. Isla was right as usual. Karabo hadn’t even thought of that. How could she have missed it? Karabo had been working as a trainee sangoma — an ithwasa — for nearly a year.

Two years ago, she’d mistakenly entered her teacher’s hut and it was after meeting the sangoma that day that Karabo’s ancestors called on her. Confused by it all at the time, Anathi explained that Karabo came from a long line of sangomas but, because Anathi had never been called, she never thought that Karabo would be. Anathi had instead become an exceptional and driven lawyer. It was when Karabo complained of dreams and headaches that Anathi realised she was more than likely being called by her ancestors.

Karabo was less than excited by the news. Her life plan, with a focus on hockey, did not take becoming a sangoma into account. Since then, life had shifted direction and Karabo felt drawn to medicine as a complementary mainstream study to her sangoma training. To be honest, she wasn’t sure if the two worlds would marry somewhere; or whether she’d always feel torn between the worlds of mystics, ancient spirits and guides and western medicine and pharmaceutical drugs. But, even though they seemed to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, she wanted to try.

‘I’ll send them an email to ask if that’s relevant,’ she responded. Isla looked at her carefully. ‘You didn’t think about it did you?’ she teased Karabo.

Karabo shrunk, ‘No. Totally missed it.’ Isla shook her head, ‘Shall I fill in your med school applications for you too,’ Isla joked. Karabo threw her maths book — a large, thick, red textbook — at Isla, missing her by a centimetre. Isla raised her hands in surrender.

‘Just checking! And your aim sucks,’ she laughed.

A few days later, Karabo received a positive response from UCT Medical School; she could definitely log her hours with the sangoma as community and health visits. They still encouraged her to do a few hours with a registered medical practitioner but, for all intents and purposes, they were happy as long as they received the sangoma’s report.

And therein lay the problem. The submissions officer had attached a document for the sangoma to fill in as proof that the hours spent were genuine. Karabo just knew that her cantankerous teacher would tear it up. In reality, her sangoma teacher saw no reason to live within the confines of paper or the limitations of a physical world. As tempted as she was to ask Isla how she might convince her teacher, she chose instead to think about it for a few days and wait for her ancestors to offer a hint.

Her ancestors, unfortunately, were not forthcoming; she even meditated in the traditional manner to call on them. All they’d offered was images of William.

She still couldn’t figure out why they always insisted on bringing William into everything. She could see his face appear in her mind, and it took her breath away. He was still in Madagascar and was running, she shut the image out of her mind immediately. It was too painful to think about why he was running and from whom. Were his disgusting father and brothers chasing him? Clearly, her ancestors were playing with her emotions, making her watch him being tortured, and the ache in her heart had her doubled over.

She hadn’t heard from him since last year. It had only been one text message that said he was going to try and bring Edward’s criminal business down from the inside. It was this secret that she held close to her heart — the only thing she could hang onto.

She let Isla mouth-off during the December holidays about William being just like his father. She heard Mzi try and wrap his mind around William’s betrayal of Cedric, Mzi’s father, and his mother. In response, Karabo would listen and look Mzi in the eyes and nod in agreement. The worst part was not being able to tell anyone that it was a ruse; that everything they thought about William was wrong.

William was on their side as he’d always been. She knew he was undercover, but not a single other person did. Sometimes she felt like she was suffocating — especially when she woke up at night and felt him close to her. Karabo knew he was still alive but had no idea what he was being forced to do to keep up the pretence. With nothing left to do but wonder, she prayed to her ancestors to protect William before falling asleep again.